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Automatic Confluence page statuses for large teams (15+ statuses)

What is the Confluence page status

The Confluence page status is a visual indicator that tells a visitor what the page's current position is in the content lifecycle. Users in Confluence can view page status usually at the top of a page. A correct and automatically updating Confluence page status helps to keep review deadlines and lower unnecessary interruptions between team members.

After exploring how to make Confluence display the status on individual pages, we will look at how the Confluence page status macro provides a useful way to select and render page lists.

Updating the Confluence page status with Better Content Archiving for Confluence

The page status works well with other features like Confluence notifications. You can also reduce review delays with reminder emails and put page owners in control of content quality checks.

The page status is also a good way to track progress with a defined workflow. Your team may want a Confluence page to go from "In Progress" to "Ready for Review" to "Approved". Authors can track and display status changes by setting the page status manually. They can also follow those changes using the Confluence page status macro or receive daily digest emails.

Automatically update the Confluence page status

Large teams that manage thousands of pages with different review dates, can't be expected to set page statuses manually.

The page status needs to update automatically to be the driver of an enterprise-ready Confluence content lifecycle management workflow.

Triggers for a Confluence page status change:

  • The page hasn't been visited for a set number of days.
  • The page hasn't been edited for a set number of days.
  • The page content is due for periodic review.
  • On top of automatic triggers, manual actions should be available (so someone can set the "Review needed", "Approved", or "To Archive" status).

You can make Confluence show page statuses as there is a built-in page status feature in Confluence Cloud. However, Confluence Cloud page statuses are limited to 5 statuses. It is not enough for an organization with a complex document approval workflow or content lifecycle journey.

The default Confluence page statuses are "Rough draft", "In Progress" and "Ready for review". You can extend Confluence page statuses with "Approved", "Rejected", "Excluded", "Flagged", and many more, without limit using Better Content Archiving for Confluence.

Maximum only 5 built-in status is available in Confluence by default

With Atlassian's solution, Confluence admins can allow users to create their own statuses, but those are not available for anyone else. This way those can't contribute to an efficient page status management practice for Confluence.

Large teams need many flexible statuses to avoid conflicts and align page statuses with any document review workflow. Confluence page view stats and Confluence page status reports are also more useful with precise page statuses.

19 advanced Confluence space status

Page status management is a key consideration in the Better Content Archiving for Confluence Cloud app. You can choose from 19 page statuses that you can use instantly after installing the app.

Better Content Archiving for Confluence comes with 19 default statuses, and you can create more!

You can add new statuses, so you can fit page statuses to the ones in your document review workflow.

A Confluence page status can have:

  1. a name,
  2. a color,
  3. an icon,
  4. and a description.

Once you added the page status, you can define them in the content status scheme. After that, you can view the Confluence page status at the top of the page among other meta information.

Defining a page status means using Confluence Query Language (CQL). It's the best way to tell what pages should be considered "Expired", "To Review", "Approved", etc.

Each space can have its own definition of the same page status. For example, in one space, a page is "Expired" if it hasn't been edited for 365 days. In another, it expires only after 730 days.

Try advanced Confluence page statuses now for free!

How to set the page status in Confluence Cloud

You can set a page status in Confluence Cloud either by manually adding it to a page or letting page statuses update automatically.

Steps to set up automatic Confluence page status:

  1. In the content status scheme, define the status using CQL:
    label = "review" or arch.event.lastUpdatedOn < now("-365d")
  2. The page status will update to "To Review" after no edits for a year.

Setting up the content status scheme in Better Content Archiving for Confluence

Steps to add a status to a Confluence page manually:

  1. Let's add a "Review In Progress" status. In the content status scheme, define the status using CQL:
    label = "review-in-progress"
  2. Add the label "review-in-progress" to a Confluence page.
  3. Refresh to see the updated page status.

You can apply this to any other page status. Instead of tying the automated status update to the last edit date, you can specify an exact review due date.

Use the Confluence page status macro

There are several ways to embed a list of pages as a macro in Confluence. The page status macro provided by Better Content Archiving for Confluence is called Page Status List. It renders a list of pages that match your CQL query parameter.

Better Content Archiving has a Confluence page status list macro

Use this Confluence page status macro to clearly indicate the status of your pages in a reliable and effective manner inside Confluence pages. The Better Content Archiving app provides the Page Status List macro as a dedicated solution for embedding page lists. It displays specific fields like status and other relevant fields.

Get advanced Confluence page statuses

 

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